States Adding the Most Jobs in March

States reporting the strongest job gains last month included Florida, North Carolina and Georgia. See totals for your state.

New figures published by the Labor Department this morning show that a few states added notable tallies of jobs in March.

Florida recorded job gains of about 23,000 last month, with nearly half the growth coming from the leisure and hospitality sector. Other states adding the most jobs included North Carolina (+19,400), Georgia (+14,600) and California (+11,800).

Twenty-one states reported declines in their unemployment rates. Although Ohio added just 600 positions, its unemployment rate (measured by a different survey of households) fell 0.4 percent --more than any other state.

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Most states saw payroll employment and jobless rates change little over the month.

A few states did, though, post weaker jobs reports. Pennsylvania lost an estimated 8,400 jobs, while Virginia’s payroll employment declined by 5,100. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia registered unemployment rate increases for March.

While Rhode Island’s unemployment rate has slowly declined over the past several months, its current rate of 8.7 percent remains the nation’s highest.

The national unemployment rate of 6.7 percent hasn’t moved much recently after falling for most of last year.